Separate Ways
by RaeC
Summary: SLASH: Betrayal


  
~~-~~  
  
The words left unspoken  
Are a dream that doesn't exist,  
Simply what is left behind  
To somehow replace the guilt.  
  
They seek rest in eternal embrace  
And if given enough time  
Even the most dense of us  
Would have seen it ourselves  
Eventually...  
  
~~-~~

Separate Ways

~~-~~  
  
'Everything happens for a reason.' Whoever made up that platitude should be shot. Daniel tossed the covers off and got up out of bed. The night was too hot, too cold, too light, too dark, and nothing would let him rest. His mind constantly wandering around in endless circles as he struggled to contain his demons...death, life, love, hate...pain.   
  
There wouldn't be any rest for the weary tonight. Daniel leaned his head against the chilled glass of his window pane letting the cold frost of Colorado in December seep into his skin, hopefully freezing his thoughts so he could make it just one more day. One more day in the winter that was his life these days. An emptiness that stretched into distance with no hope of ending. One more friend lost. One more voice silenced. One more life committed to grave.   
  
His palms pressed against the glass next to his head, the moon not bright enough to blight out the darkening blue in his eyes. The shadows that haunted the corners of his soul proclaiming Daniel to be unlucky, damaged, unworthy of love. His parents lost before he was old enough to understand they were gone. His foster parents buried beneath a slab of cold concrete. His wife stolen from his bed while he was out doing what he did best...being an archaeologist. The thought nearly made him throw up as it was so close to the guilt he carried right now. That archaeology was yet again the cause of a misfortune in his life.   
  
If he'd just left Robert behind at the base, made some sort of excuse. Fought harder, *did* something!  
  
If he'd just left it behind...found some other way to live out his life. Sure...he would never have met Sha're...Jack, or Sam and Teal'c, or...Robert, but they'd all be alive today and happy. And he wouldn't have to carry this pain that threatened to overwhelm him again. His grandfather wouldn't have shut him out of his life for his heretical concepts of the pyramids. He wouldn't be here, enduring this agony alone. And Robert would be safe in some University surrounded by the things that he loved...artifacts and animals long dead.  
  
It was a bitter, self depreciating laugh that escaped his lips. People are too recent...wasn't that what Jack told him, trying in his own odd way to offer some sort of light note in his grief. That was just like Robert, to hide behind words when he knew he wasn't wanted. Was it any surprise that they'd drifted together? Both intelligent, two geeks in a world full of frat houses and football jocks all skating by with little time for two nerds who did nothing but get in the way. Their heads buried in their books, they literally bumped into each other at the library one day, both seeking the same sofa in the same corner.   
  
It was the first time Daniel had relaxed since coming to college. Here was someone he could talk to. Someone who understood the love of all things old, the nuance of a syllable, the careful puff of air, and the gentle stroke of the brush. Someone who understood.   
  
It was Robert's love of archaeology that attracted him at first, but it would be that strange mixture of arrogance and shyness that intrigued him. Did Robert know? Daniel couldn't ever recall telling Robert how much his friendship had meant to a lonely young man with no one. How much the Christmas spent at his parents house had given him his first feeling of belonging somewhere, of belonging *to* someone. Of all people, why did it have to be Robert?   
  
Daniel slid to the floor, guilt once again his silent companion for wishing such a fate on someone other than his friend. Curling his arms around his knees, he rocked back and forth, the tears silent as they fell to the floor; each one a precious gift in reminder of a day spent with his unusual friend. For if Robert was anything, he was a contradiction in terms. A world class olympic runner yet not a jock by anyone's standards. Reserved, yet arrogant, self assured. Quiet, but forceful in his attempts to make you listen to his views. A shadow, but you were always very aware that he was there.   
  
Sometimes they just spent the day walking through town, exploring the shops and never having to say a word to each other. Daniel would just know when Robert was ready to go, and Robert would know he was ready. Or the many nights they stayed up late pouring over manuscripts and ancient texts looking for some illusive cross reference that could be used to build up Daniel's position. In all that time, Daniel never forgot Robert was there. It was just some sort of quality he had, a presence.   
  
Daniel had only met one other person like that in his life. Someone who made him feel a part of something larger than himself. Someone he knew without ever speaking that he was there. A person who made him feel as if he belonged.   
  
It was a terrible, wasteful end. All of it gone; a horrible disease slowly eating away at the fabric of the illusion. Robert, lost in the wastelands of a Goa'uld paradise, and Jack...Jack, his friendship eroded one day at a time to this thing left unspoken between them. It was one word, then two, and then a series that skittered across their tongues flaying what little remained between them, leaving it broken and bleeding. Too many words spoken and not spoken and no where to begin.  
  
Why Jack? Why did it have to be you? Why not someone else? "WHY!?" echoed in the darkness, reverberating in the empty room, only to be whispered yet again..."why."   
  
~~~  
  
Jack stood outside the door to Daniel's apartment his hand poised to knock when he heard the agonized cry. It hit him right in the gut, plunging right below the belt. This man was supposed to be his friend and here he was standing outside his door afraid to knock, afraid to know, to hear what he already suspected.   
  
And he did. He knew. Right now, in this moment, the anguish that filtered through the door laid it all out on the table. 'What the hell am I doing here?' Jack let his hand fall. Rothman had been an irritating little twerp at the best of times. Could he handle this? Could he sit and listen to Daniel, be the friend he needed right now?  
  
He needed to explain to Daniel that it was an accident. Something that just happened. No one expected it. That he was sorry. Close some of the distance between them. The thought rose in him again, that maybe his aggravation at the archaeologist wasn't Rothman himself, but maybe the fact that Jack resented Robert's presence, the friendship he had with Daniel. The easy way he'd find them talking late in the night, excited over the implication of discovery that Robert or Daniel had brought back from the field.   
  
This was a part of Daniel's life that Jack could never be part of, a piece of Daniel that belonged to someone else, a shared past. It was silly to resent it, but he did, tried to control it, but it had a tendency to sneak up on him sometimes like right now...when Daniel was hurting and Jack couldn't do anything to make it all go away.   
  
Immobilized as he listened to the sounds of grief come from the apartment. Even the slightest movement carried in the stillness of the night through the door. It was all Jack could do to turn and walk a little way down the hall to give his friend some illusion of privacy. He slumped against the wall, his hands stuffed into his pockets. Loud, angry ripping tore into the hallway followed by something striking right behind his back. Did Daniel know he was there?   
  
Jack refused to move. It wasn't enough that he was sorry, but he felt as if he deserved every thump aimed in his direction. The wall that separated them allowing them to communicate in the silent night, words unneeded. Something shattered against the plaster, a mini war of rage making itself known. Maybe it was time that he knocked?   
  
A neighbour stuck her head out her door and spied Jack sadly holding up the wall. He just shook his head at her. "He lost a friend today." And with those quietly spoken words, her door snicked shut along with two others Jack had never noticed opening. It was a good thing that he was known by Daniel's neighbours or the cops would surely have been called by now.   
  
The sound of silence once again reigned in the pre-dawn light. Jack turned, leaning his head against the cold surface. "Danny, I'm so sorry."  
  
"Why, Jack?" Jack whipped his head around. Daniel was nothing more than a shadow in the doorway, his apartment a dark abyss that sucked what little light there was away. He could use a little divine intervention right now. Daniel's face was hidden and he really needed some sort of hint as to what he was thinking.   
  
The silence stretched, neither of them moving.   
  
"Why what, Daniel?" Why was he sorry? Why was he in the hallway? Why didn't he knock? Why didn't he say something? Why wasn't he there for Daniel earlier? Why had he come over? What? 'Gimme a clue here.'  
  
"Why'd it have to be you?" Daniel turned his back on Jack and shut the door. The cold winter wind wailed outside, leaving only the words forever to be left unspoken, between them.  
  
~~~  
  
And the gloom claimed them both,   
One without and one within,   
Trying to fight a war  
That neither could win.   
  
With a whisper in the pre-dawn light  
Into the heart of darkness   
That underneath lies hidden  
Poisoning the sleeping dream.  
  
Yet it was us in the end  
Who hid behind these lies  
With all these words unspoken  
With this wall between us  
Surrendering ourselves to separate ways.  
  
~~~  
  
Rae 


End file.
